By Frieda Ekotto Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies - French and Comparative
Literature - The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Emotion is Negro, just as reason is Hellenic

Drawing from Senghor’s analysis of René

both establishes equality and problematizes

Léopold Sédar Senghor

Maran, Nimrod suggests that for Senghor

his own assertion:

the “soul” of a work is manifest in its syntax
“L’émotion est nègre, comme la raison

(12). In Senghor’s reading of Maran the

[The] main point appears in the statement itself.

héllène.” The great philosopher and writer

relationship between the rhythm of the

The expression just as establishes a parallel

(and the future president of Senegal)

lines and the ideas expressed create the

between black and western. This parallel

Léopold Sédar Senghor wrote this ostensibly

soul of the text—which reflects both the

presupposes a partly scientific, partly ideological

outrageous statement around 1939. It has

individual and an African mode of being

separation. […] Being Cartesian presumes

frustrated people ever since. Most have read

which is expressed. More concretely, it is in the

seeking out counterpoints. Thus just as is a term

it as exemplifying one of the problems of the

syntax—the rhythm of the language—that

that indicates both opposition and relation.

Negritude movement: In order to articulate

the writer melds Wolof or Malinke into a new

But that is not all. The as is the pivot of a

a notion of “blackness”, Negritude artists and

kind of French, thus creating in this rhythmic

perfect Alexandrian line. It neatly separates

philosophers often simultaneously reified

shifting of language concrete examples

the roles through a break that comes precisely

racist colonial notions of “blackness.” So

of the enriching possibilities of métissage.

after the sixth syllable. The die is cast. Yes, a

it is not surprising that this sentence from

Perhaps more importantly, however, is the

statement such as this formed as an aphorism

Senghor’s “What the Black Man Contributes”

fact that writers such as Maran are illustrating

is an intellectual game, one which, though the

has created an outrage, or, as novelist and poet

Senghor’s philosophical assertion about the

outcome is predictable, procures a great deal

Nimrod put it in his book Léopold Senghor:

generative and emotive possibilities of the

of pleasure for its author. A good deal of its

In Memoriam, a scandal. And yet, Senghor’s

African mode of being. Emotive nuances

success lies in the fact that it should, theoretically,

articulation of notions of blackness remains

are created by relationships that depend on

awaken our suspicions. Senghor set himself a

crucial, because they sought to establish the

rhythmic connections. This is in contrast with,

brilliant trap. (21-22, italics his)

unique modes African knowledge function in

and complementary to, Cartesian oppositional

parity with European ones. We must return to

categories.

In reading this line through its syntax, Nimrod

Senghor’s statement on emotion and reason

Returning to “L’émotion est nègre, comme la

shows how Senghor used the rhythm of

and excavate its intentions.

raison héllène.” Nimrod insists that we read as

language for its own rhetorical effect. In other

Nimrod does this particularly well in his work,

Senghor did: according to rhythms. Through

words, we should not read the statement

Tombeau de Léopold Sédar Senghor. He

a close reading of the syntax of this single

for its “rationalist” fact, but as a risky

reads the sentence in terms of its rhythm.

sentence, Nimrod demonstrates how Senghor

intellectual game that both uses and critiques

12

Negritude artists and
philosophers often
simultaneously reified
racist colonial notions
of “blackness.”
Cartesian language. In other words, Nimrod
is suggesting that Senghor dropped this
“rhetorical bomb” (23) to bring our attention
both to the fallibility of Cartesian oppositional
categories and to the possibility of
relationships created by rhythm. If we consider
the rhythmic relationship between these two
sentences that Nimrod detailed above, we
find not only a (risky) critique of essentializing
categories, but also a movement between two
entities in an equal relationship that is both
oppositional and creative. This brings us back
to Senghor’s ultimate goal: the possibility of
métissage, of mixing together European and
African modes of knowledge.
Senghor’s statement can therefore be read in
the generative mode of Negritude. His goal
was to show how African philosophy could
be integrated into French through creative
manipulation of French language, the very tool
the French Empire used to “civilize” its subjects.
“L’émotion est nègre, comme la raison héllène”
is not an espousal of categorization, but a
critique of it, even as it stresses the importance
of both the intellect and the emotions.

an end to Jim Crow apartheid laws of racial
segregation and discrimination, which
would be the decisive action for the passing
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. An Act, that
outlawed overt discrimination against racial,
ethnic, national and religious minorities, and
women.
Today this act is being eroded and there
is collective emotional outrage by many
but particularly by a group of artists in

20

more things change the more they stay the

“As artists we are able to
transcend crimes against
our collective through the
faculty of the imagination”
We are marching from the new Martin
Luther King, Jr. Monument all the way to the
front of the White House, then onto Senbeb
restaurant of the Ausar Auset Society for an

same”.
As we march and chant ourselves into a
trance we see a repeated image on every
t-shirt, on every person, on every corner
being sold by a black vendor, our agents for
marketing the social ideology, symbolism
and fixed representations of whom we are.
A new icon, a signifier of the psychological
response to a recent event of the black

struggle is born. Trayvon Martin a young

possible in the land of the free and home of

behind the big house to console or reassure

black boy looking out into the world, full

the brave?

us that change is coming, exhausted we

of oblivious optimism and unaware of the

Today marks fifty years of social action and

move on, move forward and hungry to

legacy slavery has imposed on his young

as we march on this last of summer days of

a place of refuge Senbeb where we will

black body. His beautiful face like a Christ,

2013, I briefly have my moment to lead the

find nourishment for the body and spirit.

Ausar, Osiris dismembered and resurrected

marchers chanting in a vocal register one

Refreshed and revived we find ourselves

yet again, holy and framed with a halo, an

can only say comes from an a noumenal

at the fine art exhibit that showcases

infamous gray hoodie, and like Ausar or

plane spurred on by this new injustice, this

art exploring justice, equality and social

Christ he will remain permanently benign

new icon, who like that of Emmett Till, will

consciousness and in the words of the

and youthful. The myth of Ausar renamed

motivate yet another generation to March

curators, “honor the contributions of those

Osiris by the Greeks needs to be briefly
recounted. Ausar is a Kametic deity who is
dismembered by his own brother Set who
wants his throne. Most mysteriously his wife
Isis finds the pieces of the scattered body
but the only body part that is missing is the
phallus. Am I reading too much into the
myth but is this not the story behind this
new black icon? Or is the work of scholar
John Henrik Clarke or psychiatrist Dr, Francis
Cress Welsing resurfacing in my “brain
computer”?
If we study the ancient myths and icons
more deeply we see that black manhood,
the phallus, has been criminalized for some
time now. Obscured in Obama’s so-called
post racial America, Jim Crow is alive and
well and black male racial profiling in
particular lives on, highlighted most vividly
by the dramatic car chase and beating
of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991.
Proof that stalking, stopping and frisking,
beating and charging without warrant, still

People In the Hood, Susan Walen Fiber Art

remains part of the American way of life
since slavery. In the case of Trayvon and

on Washington.

who came before us to protect and honor

countless others it is now well documented

“What do we want? Justice for Trayvon!

their legacy”. We have reached higher

to be called a psychopathology. The

When do we want it ? Now!” We are

ground.

spectacle of a dead young black male,

outside the White House now standing

In the gallery I stand and look for all the

never witness to his own lynching, has now

with a small band of the most sincere, die-

Rasa, emotions in Sanskrit, that one would

been legitimized, sanitized and televised

hard of peace movement demonstrators

expect from a bad situation. Being an actor

for public consumption complete with a

and it feels all too familiar, like we have all

I know what emotions look and feel like and

trial by a jury not of his peers. How is this

been here before. With no response from

where in the body they come from when

21

Profiled - Larry Poncho Brown
Mixed Media
Collage on Canvas

exploring any artistic expression. However

against our collective through the faculty

a long hard look within and process what

at the gallery what I see is not collective

of the imagination and visualize not only

it means to be flawed and human yet still

disgust (bibastam), or outrage (raudram),

what happened five hundred years prior

dare to be a god woman and god man,

or fear (bayanakam), but grief, pity and

to this moment but we are able to put all

like Ausar and Auset, visualizing a better

compassion (karunam), courage (viram),

those negative emotions we face daily,

world devoid of discrimination, ignorance

even a little laughter (hasyam) and wonder

recycle, remix them back into symbols,

and bigotry according to Ran Un Nefer

(adbutam), but most of all peace (santam)

icons that transcend the profane by

Amen. Let us gather our members, no pun

and love (sringaram). You see as twisted

interpreting and translating what people

intended and move to higher ground.

as this sounds the story of Ausur points

need to know about the world and our

us to the fact that without injustice we

place in it. The art and action inspired by

Mukwae Wabei Siyolwe

would not know justice or even recognize

the death of Trayvon Martin and others

To my son H.W.M. H and all our sons.

the importance of peace to transcend our

proves to us that we are all unified and it is

human condition. The meanings at the

most apparent when marching with over

exhibit are multivalent â&#x20AC;&#x201C; social, political

two hundred and fifty thousand people and

The Art of Justice Fine Art Exhibition

and spiritual and all are expressive of ideas,

the spirit of the late, great Rev. Dr. Martin

Art Exploring Justice, Equality and

values and power whose custodianship is

Luther King, Jr., whose visceral immediate

Social Consciousness

given exclusively for centuries to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;artistâ&#x20AC;?

decolonial aesthesis with Walter during his
recent visit to Pretoria.
It is Friday night and despite the area being
uncannily still, the general electric buzz is
absent, the sound of cicadas amplified, and
the dogs bark leaving hollow echoes in the
darkness. Despite the darkness, the house
is buzzing with activity in preparation for
my mother’s sixtieth birthday celebration.
The power cables were stolen around

Pretoria 2013 August
We find ourselves in Pretoria, the capital
that founded the apartheid regime. We

“Despite the positive
changes, South Africa
Post-Apartheid still thrives
on the conditions of
apartheid segregation
which remain based on the
intersectionalties of race,
gender, patriarchy, etc.”

two o’clock -- a reminder of apartheid

are not far from one of the main massive
apartheid prisons; Pretoria Prison Central,
known for its one of a kind gallows; a
hanging device that would hang 7 people
at a time. It is also the prison in which Biko
was brought to die from sever torture and
neglect during interrogation. Today the
prison stands as a Memorial Monument,
a grotesque reminder of the thousands of
blacks South Africans that were hung in

and coloniality; which exists in the white

I am getting increasingly frustrated, the

these gallows; among them the youngest

glare of a country whose infrastructure

darkness grows denser. I keep getting

and (wrongly accused) first Umkhonto

was catered solely for 9.2% of the white

distracted by the noise in the kitchen. The

Wesizwe trained freedom fighter to be

population, excluding the rest of South

court yard is covered with gazebo tents

executed, Solomon Mahlangu.

Africa.

outside in the garden and gas cookers have

Today, as I write, knowing that I have far

Despite the positive changes, South

been pulled out to cook for forty guests in

exceeded the deadline for this article,

Africa Post-Apartheid still thrives on the

candlelight. The menu is Indian curries and

I glance at the calendar and it is the 6

conditions of apartheid segregation which

specialities ranging from Paneer, dhalroti,

September 2013, I don’t believe this is a

remain based on the intersectionalties

entrails, tripe, brain and tongue, trotters

coincidence since it precisely marks 36 years

of race, gender, patriarchy, etc. The

and other traditional foods. My thoughts

ago that Steve Biko was last conscious. On

exhisting conditions supporting Derrida’s

wander to Mignolo’s Anthropos and the

the 7 Sep 1977, a police physician’s report

29

states that Biko “sustained a head injury
during interrogation”, the prison physician
did not tend to him despite Biko showing
signs of neurological damage (revealed
from later investigations).
The prison guards left him naked, lying on
the cell floor, shackled to a metal griddle
Black Bullets 2012, 4:33min, sound, Jeannette Ehlers,
Courtesy of the artist and Art Labour Archives

for days. Eventually Biko slipped into a
perpetual state of semi consciousness.
On the 11 September a prison physician

criminals due to the irrational greed of

after posting a blog claiming that raping

recommended that Biko needed medical

Apartheid which makes black people illegal

babies is a black cultural phenomenon;

treatment. Instead of driving to the nearest

in their own country. Pretoria might seem

three white university students urinated

hospital, Biko was thrown naked and

changed, but continues to be a bastion

in food and forced elderly black cleaning

unconscious into the back of a van and

of apartheid coloniality… Solomon’s last

staff to consume the urine soaked meat

driven 12 hours to Pretoria. On the 12th

words on the short walk to his execution

with garlic, on all fours like dogs. East of

of September Biko died of brain damage,

still rings with an urgency of justice to be

Pretoria has an all-white settlement known

alone and naked on the cold floor in a

done:

as Kleinfontein, which claims to uphold

prison cell. http://africanhistory.about.com/

My blood will nourish the tree that will bear

conservative Afrikaans Calvinist apartheid

od/stevebiko/a/bio-Biko.htm

the fruits of freedom. Tell my people that I

values, to “protect” Afrikaans culture

This is one of the narratives that my father,

love them. They must continue the fight. –

which is perceived to be under threat by

Pritz Dullay (who worked with Steve Biko),

Mahlangu 1977

the new South Africa. Our universities

would tell us in exile, to explain solitude

His voice echoes louder today as South

have somehow been allowed to continue

and the reasons we had to leave our home

Africa maintains a logic cemented

with an apartheid ideology of archaic

and family to flee to Denmark.

in apartheid architecture and a near

racist pseudo-knowledge, exacerbated

These larger political narratives are

unchanged geography that reflects the

by the corporatization of education in

part of events that directly shaped my

dominantly white economy which retains

which knowledge, critical thinking, and

consciousness. In 1978 due to the Apartheid

ownership of South Africa’s wealth by

consciousness has no merit, and quality

regime and the police clamping down, the

the same families as during apartheid --

is measured by outcome and deadlines.

escalated violence, assassination attacks,

through institutionalization, socialization,

Despite recent findings that more blacks

arrests and harassment, and the finality and

and punishment.

are accepted at university, I know from

violence of Biko’s murder, forced us to leave

Despite existing in post-apartheid

experience that many departments at

the country and go into exile in Denmark.

South Africa, the remnants of apartheid

university attract a large number of black

We returned in 1992 to Durban and I have

bureaucracy are not merely latent, but

students in first year who somehow gets

only recently found myself in Pretoria due

remain part of our day to day lives.

filtered out and fail and eventually end with

to the difficulties of employment which

Following are a few examples of racist

nearly only white students who manage

cannot be separated from the colonial

encounters that I can mention off the tip

to attain postgraduates degrees. The

apartheid legacy.

of my tongue in Gauting: 1992 a young

interectionalities of racism that students

As I write this article today, I am in

white man went on a mass murder

face are entrenched in the structural

conversation with Biko, with Mahlangu, and

shooting in the center of Pretoria,

burocracy and administration of the

all the political prisoners; those murdered

killing 8 blacks and wounding 25; a

systemic institution of apartheid. Also, the

in cold blood, as well as the thousands of

professor in politics from the University

necessity of being conscious of the physical

blacks who were, and continue to be, made

of Johannesburg resigned last week,

harm of black students who are in danger

30

of their lives which some of the following

a Latin American Scholar to standing on

could be conceptually applied to the

accounts will prove:

African soil and specifically what it meant

praxis found in which many of the black

A young white male was mercilessly

to him to be in South Africa. As Walter

diaspora artists are working, like Jeannette

beaten at the University of Johannesburg

was invited by CISA, Indian Studies in

Ehlers whose work reveals the repressed,

by other white males for standing

South Africa, he began speaking of the

unspoken, and the unseen. I rearticulate

with a black girl. In February, the same

entry point he had into the country -- the

Occult Instability as pertinent due to the

university had an incident of a black male

Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean, is my own

massive machinery produced by the white

forced into a cold shower for some four

point of entry because my ancestors were

imagination and its violence upon blacks...

hours http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/

brought to South Africa to replace slavery

an inversion of black magic.

lazolandamase/2008/05/05/university-

as indentured servants working on the

The abject images of empire, colonialism,

students-racist-don%E2%80%99t-blame-

sugarcane plantations since slavery had

and fetishism named by Max Webber as

the-kids-ask-the-parents/

recently been made illegal. Reading Agnes

Phantasmagoria produces a space in which

Many white liberals point out that we have

Sam’s introduction to ‘Jesus is Indian’ (1989),

Occult Instability would have possibility to

black management in positions of power

I came across information about Apartheid

disrupt.

and hence “racism” cannot be a central or

legislation prior to the “official” history of

Positioned within Tricontinental aesthetics/

valid issue.

Apartheid.

political decolonial aesthesis, in South

White racism today, (more than ever) exists
through a master/slave dialectic. Blacks
must internalize their enslavement to
survive and look to the white master for
verification of their negated humanity.
It is this dialectic that keeps South Africa
locked in an economy of Apartheid,
reproducing a whitewash of history......a

Africa, many powerful examples of art have

“As I write this article today,
I am in conversation with
Biko, with Mahlangu, and
all the political prisoners;
those murdered in cold
blood”

violent silence of erasure, a whiteout...in

arisen from the void of apartheid/colonial
dehumanisation and its impoverishment.
One example is the gumboot dance.......
born from deep inside the cold stone walls
of our diamond, coal, and gold mines. Black
men (the very men that white people try
to strip of their identity, other than as an
object of labour benefiting whiteness),

which meaning is lost in fragmentation......

Indian Indentured labourers in South

recreate their humanity through cultural

and in which semiotic rules render “black”

Africa were the first ones to carry passes,

production in the form of dance and music,

as synonymous with “slave”, locked and

as early as 1898, when a law restricted

from nothing but their gumboots, and

paralyzed in white noise.

their movement and also prohibited their

their bodies....producing the sharp sound

This example of paralysis can be likened

ownership of property, land or citizenship

of men making the walls reverberate from

to the distinction by Malcom X on the

as the only racialized segment of the

their steps and their voices which resonate

differences between the “field Negro” and

population in South Africa at the time.”

through the tunnels that cut open, and

the “House Negro”.

In Pretoria, Indian South Africans were

shaped the veins of our land........ Their

Over the few days spent talking with Walter,

barred from entering up until as late as the

voices amplified, not just carried by the

conversations continued that would stop,

1960’s and it is quite visible that very few

acoustics of the mines, but accentuated

pause, and pick up quite seamlessly as

Indian South Africans live here.

by the humanity of decolonial aesthesis

we spoke of the different trajectories of

Considering race and representation in

through their performance of sensing the

decolonisation, aesthesis, resistance and

globalization’s image saturated society

environment and channelling the loss,

solidarity. I find this significant as spoke

beckons us to re-examine the relationship

longing, and energy needed to exist in the

within the context of what Walter calls the

between capitalism, visual culture, and

dark chambers inside the earth.

“genealogy of border thinking”.

empire, making me revisit black decolonial

Cultural production, interpreted as

I asked Walter about his relationship as

theory in Fanon’s occult instability, which

decolonial aesthesis, enters into a

31

decolonial healing beginning with the right

Tricontinental/Latin American scholars,

bringing different diciplines together under

and expression of self-determination. The

activist artists, decolonial revolutionaries,

the paradigm of social justice.

significance of abstract thought, is, to a

and anti-imperialist struggles.

We are not multi-disciplinary,

large extent, what distinguishes us from

Our collaboration (in Be.Bop.) and with

interdisciplinary but undiciplinary.-Mignolo

animals and makes us human. The necessity

each other as part of the dislocation, or

I consider Walter Mignolo’s first visit

of creation and recreation in the face of

what Walter conceptualizes as “delinking

to South Africa and our South/South

nihilism, and colonial negation, is inherent

of colonialism”, and in extension: Black

collaborations as an extension of the

in Max Webber’s term “Phantasmagoria”

Consciousness, Black Diaspora, Black

cultural and revolutionary work in the

with its exhibitionism of ownership

exile and other anti-colonial resistance,

solidarities forged in the 1959 Bandung

and objectification. Equally inherent is

is a collaboration of great significance

Conference -- the second largest scale Afro-

its linguistic meaning that defines the

that takes and makes space, in which the

Asian conference. Followed by the 1959

Aesthetic of the ghosting, a haunting, of

possibility of radical and epistemic shifts

Paris Conference (The Congress of leading

something that is not alive but neither

occur; breaking away from dominant

Black Writers, Artists and intellectuals)

dead. On a socio-political level a term

colonial knowledge production to a

culminating in the 1966 Tricontinental

defining the colonial world exhibitions:

collective corporeal phenomenology

Havana Conference between South

World exhibitions have been regarded

making contemporary decolonial praxis

America, Africa and Asia. Our collaboration

as the most meaningful invention of

possible. Our collaborations are a decolonial

and engagement in other projects, such

“modernity”, famously de?ned by Walter

praxis centred in Anibal Quijano’s historicity

as Black Europe Body Politics curated by

Benjamin as “the world dominated by its

of indigenous/black ontologies of

Alanna Lockward, is an extension of this

phantasmagorias” (Hermansen & Hvattum,

knowledge production.

tradition of bringing Blacks from across

2004: xi), since the nineteenth century.

Walter speaks of inscribed bodies and

the diaspora, and exiled, together to

These present not only the exhibition of

the inherent awareness of decolonial

address our own concerns and discover

commodities, but also the expansion of

body-politic embedded by geopolitics,

our commonalities, through meeting and

products and capital markets. Moreover,

as another central point of decolonial

through the various expressions of cultural

from world exhibitions emerges the

knowledge and aesthesis; simply summed

production: from writing, art making,

meaning of celebrating national events,

up as “COLONIALITY OF KNOWLEDGE IS

performance and in producing education,

as well as reflecting the turning point in

COLONIALITY OF BEING. DECOLONIAL

industrialization. However, camouflaged

KNOWLEDGE MEANS TO DECOLONIZE

by the cover of modernization, world

BEING”.

exhibitions can represent the ideologies of

CONNECTION WITH LATIN AMERICA:

nationalism, imperialism and colonialism.

The Tricontinental connection with South
America, Caribbean, Asia and Africa, had

Johannesburg/Egoli; City of Gold August

already been established. My personal

2013

interest in coming here was due to the
connections made in the seventies, when

A conversation between Antonia
Alampi, curator at ‘Beirut’
and artist Caecilia Tripp
Beirut is a new art initiative and
exhibition space that reflects
upon institution building as a
curatorial act. Sarah Rifky and
Jens Maier-Rothe founded it on
May 1, 2012, joined by Antonia
Alampi as Associate Curator.

C.T : How did Beirut art space come into

C.T : In your presentation, you speak of the

(your) life and what are the ideas behind its

curatorial act. What does that mean to you ?

name ?

A.L : We like to perform roles in place,

A.L : It happened one night on a Cairo

plays and institutions. We care, concern

balcony during a conversation between

and are responsible for them.

Sarah Rifky and Jens Maier-Rothe. I

joined the team as an associate blind

C.T : How do you see your curatorial practice

date later on. Visions started manifesting

in a state of emergency ?

in October 2012 and are in due course.
Questions about the name occur all

Page 36
On the left : Labour in a Single Shot, Cairo 2012, Harun
Farocki at factory visit in Alexandria, image courtesy of Beirut
On the right : Goldin+Senneby, The Decapitation of Money,
2010. Installation, 28 mins. Courtesy of the artist and Beirut

A.L : Time is fluctuating and

in context and in comparison, create a

“Beirut is ambiguous,
impulsive and
emotional but
reflexive, social
and affectionate,
precarious but fertile.”

temporary co-dependence with the aim

of realizing something you cannot on

A.L : It always varies, has different

your own.

extents scopes and intentions, defines

itself depending on people, places and

C.T : What is your program this coming fall ?

questions. At times mindful, at times

unpredictable, we recognize the need
to think outside of fixed positions and
challenge assumptions. It’s a matter of
survival. We believe in partnerships
and exchange as being fecund and
generative, in many ways. They impose
auto-reflection and challenge, thoughts

A.L : “An Institution’s Sense Organs”,
a talk by Ashok Sukumaran on 11th of
September, will be marking the opening
of Beirut Season 4. It will discuss the
difficult formation of collectivity and
the uncomplicated expression of
individuality.
‘Writing with the other hand is
imagining’ will be the opening
exhibition. It is composed of three acts,
with a choreographed rotation of works.
It will muse over language and speech,
art and alphabetization, art in conflict
with homogenization, art that aims to

37

On this page: Beirut, outside view, 2012

ART TALK

JOHN
AKOMFRAH
By Karen D. McKinnon
All images courtesy of Smoking Dog Films

The nucleus of an idea

American Filmmaker Karen D.
McKinnon speaks to visionary British
Filmmaker John Akomfrah. John
has been breaking the moulds and
shaping British and International film
landscapes through his hauntingly
beautiful films on Black British
Identity and migration. John,
one of the Founders of the famed
Black Audio Film Collective in the
1980s, talks about his unrelenting
commitment to ‘recycling’ of
archival material and dwells into
his upcoming exhibitions, After
Year Zero and The Unfinished
Conversation.
KM: Could you tell us about the Black Audio
Film Collective ?
JA: The most important reason why the
whole thing came together was friendship
and the desire to form alliances with people
who were of the same kind of cultural,
political temperament. I think that’s more
than anything than what I can discern it

38

down to. Because we met, most of us met

JA: Smoking Dogs was a sort of moving

at Portsmouth (Polytechnic) in the early 80s

image nucleus inside Black Audio Film, so

and to this day, it’s still a mystery to me how

we just carried on working it in that sense,

and why we came together, we needn’t

it’s a continuation of what we’d do in a

have to, there were all kinds of things.

collective but not inside the ethos of that
culture. I think we see some of the things

KM: How did Smoking Dog Films come out

we are doing as a continuation of some of

the collective ?

the aims and ambitions of Black Audio but
also an adapted form, new times… Those

JA: Formally, we ended the collective in

times certainly changed. When we were in

‘97. I mean I think all collectives kind of

the early 80s, proximity and access to the

have a lifespan, especially when people get

technology was a huge question, how to

together at a certain age in their early 20s,

acquire the equipment, how to make it was

things begin to change in your life as you

a big, big job, so a lot of our time was taken

enter your early 30s, priorities change as

up with trying to get 16mm cameras. Digital

well, and to hold 7, 8 people to the same

technology has transformed our practice

project for 16 or 17 years is quite a number.

beyond recognition, and so that series or

I think inevitably we sort of felt that the key

plank of the old Black Audio Film Collective,

reasons for coming together, were ones

gone. And we just had to move on and try

we had sort of achieved in a way. By ‘97

to find other ways of working. And, I think

the question of black representation was

we have. Black Audio was by then, by the

on the agenda and there were artists of

time we ended also working principally

colour working in a moving image culture,
painting, sculpture and mix media who had
taken on the questions we wanted to raise.
There was stuff happening in cinema and
television, so there wasn’t a feeling of being
some kind of lone flower in a desert.
KM: Exactly.

Still from The Stuart Hall Project

in television. We weren’t doing the

artist. I don’t wake thinking, am I this...

on the March on Washington. And that’s

mixed economies of work we were doing

it’s not a schizophrenic relationship to the

what television should be about. It should

before, working with the gallery system,

platform. Since I don’t have that, I don’t see

be about those moments when someone

cinema and TV. We were almost working

the need to keep banging on about it. We

says there’s something important that

exclusively within television. One of the

try at any one time to have a multiplicity of

happened and we have to commemorate

things we felt we wanted to do was return

address forms, and it’s necessary because

it. So a lot of it is based on cultural, political

to that mixed economy.

there are so many different interests even

and affective psychic ambitions because

now within Smoking Dogs. Trevor Mathison

one looks around to see the most effective

KM: It seems very important to you that you

is not the same as me because he’s still very

platforms for those ambitions.

work in a mixture of places such as galleries,

passionate about sound and he wants to

cinema ?

do first and foremost sound related stuff.

KM: Do you find that sometimes funders

Television doesn’t do sound related stuff

insist on you defining yourself ?

JM: It’s critical. I think the moment of

except as something subservient to the

naming oneself through a platform is sort

image. So in order to keep that relationship

JA: The question doesn’t go away. And it’s

of over for me, anyway. People don’t say

going, that practice going, of course, we are

one of the motifs that’s over-determined

what do you do ? But, where do you work?

then therefore drawn into sonic spaces that

our lives from the very first… discussion

I work here. The platforms are not anymore

are legitimate and not just back doors into

with other members of the avant-garde

that important to me and to my colleagues

cinema. We work in that space because

about whether or not people of colour

because once you’re conversant with the

someone in the group is still passionate and

could be a part of the avant-garde. That

norms and the rules by which they operate,

interested. I like what happens in cinema

still hasn’t stopped. There is a sense, I think

you can decide which of those rules and

still despite the fact that less and less of

it has been shaken but I am not sure that

norms you can abide by and which you can

it is happening. I like the platform, the

it has entirely disappeared and that sense

ignore. That is, providing you’re sufficiently

collective work, the forms of spectatorship

is that there are prescriptions and forms of

fluent with the language, and even the

and I think there is still something to be said

activity that are only appropriate for people

multiple languages involved and after 30

for the cinematic experience so we continue

of colour. I’m not sure we completely

years, we are. I don’t see the need to say

to try and work in that space and television.

destroyed that stereotype and even

whether I’m a TV director, filmmaker or

Last week, we did something for the BBC

though I’m not consciously still fighting

Stills fromThe Unfinished Conversation

39

against that, clearly part of the project is to

issue. So Robert Frost would say, “I have

end there. Sometimes we go as far as

dismantle it, because it’s a fiction. It has no

still miles to go before I sleep,” but you can

shooting something and then thinking, well

basis in reality, and there’s no evidence to

see the end of the day. {} I think, as you get

okay this isn’t quite working either because

support this but it continues to flourish.

a bit older that you’re aware that this is a

it’s not ready and so just park it until it is.

gift and that it shouldn’t be squandered.

I don’t think there’s anything I have gone

KM: Do you think it’s tied to money, tied to
class ?

to the level of shooting, for instance, that I
KM: Do you stop before you get to the

haven’t used. There are things that I might

realization of the idea ?

shoot and then park for sometimes 15

JA: All of those things, but I think it is also

years. But at some point, I’ll get back to it.

tied to a certain kind of racial economy, in

JA: They go several distances, shall we say.

I remember in the 90s, I did this 10-minute

which certain identities are deemed to be

Some things you just chew over, and for a

film for an arts strand on television and

of certain values, have certain propensities

month, I’m just going to try and work on in

shot quite a bit of it, which was suppose to

and contributions to make. And yes, if you

my own mind whether it is possible to do

include scenes of my mother. That didn’t

are Steve McQueen, occasionally, you get to

them or not. Sometimes things never quite

make it into that film but it never left my

break them. You get to say well I don’t have

migrate from that space to anywhere else.

head. I thought at some point I’m going to

to, you can say that I am Julian Schnabel, I

They get killed. And sometimes they get

make something else with that stuff. And 15

make art and I make films, you don’t need

moved onto the next level where you either

years after her death, I realized I don’t need

to tell you which of two is more important.

write them down or speak to a colleague,

to make something else, I’ll just redo the

saying I’ve got this idea, I’ve written it

old one, put finance into it.

KM: You’re involved in quite a few projects.

down, what do you think ? Sometimes
things make it beyond that and we might

So there is a traffic between ideas, either

JA: I think, as you get older, the question of

try to raise some money to realize a portion

the thoughts you have that you don’t get

time and temporality starts to become an

of it or develop it, and they could also just

to realize there and then but then have legs

Still from Handsworth songs and the nine muses

40

to run long enough to catch up with them

40s but who are not around to see things

that it’s value was deconstructing things

later on or gestating projects, be they shot

through their eyes and see what it was they

or offering new alternatives, etc. I think

material or written material sitting in a vault

were trying to do and decide to say, okay

for us and for me it was necessary to get

for a while. But, they always come back into

I can see the limit here. I can see how far

rid of this idea that there was a sort of

circulation. I like the idea of recycling a lot.

you took it. And I can also see what you

wholesomeness to the image. That you

It’s one of the informing ethics for what I do

silenced in order to get to this point, so how

can get to a point where images are wholly

and why I do it.

about we help each other here? I‘m not

good or unimpeachable. I don’t believe

going to insult you by pretending I know

that and because of that I don’t believe the

better than you, but I think I can help.

dichotomy between positive images and

KM: I know using archival material and
recycling is an important part of your
practice.

negative images is a good thing to have.
KM: Do you ever find yourself in an

Now, once you commit yourself to that, it

antagonistic relationship, especially when

does mean rising to the challenge of finding

JA: Absolutely. Yes, I mean there are all sorts

a certain view of things is presented or

ways of working with things however horrid

of theoretical, cultural political reasons why

constructed to influence perception ?

one may find those images. So it’s not like a

we’ve gone to the archive and why we used
material on the African Diaspora from the
archives. Loads of running alongside that is
also an ethical and aesthetic choice which
says we have to find ways of conferring
value to the past, because without that
most of what we are, especially as people
of colour, don’t really make much sense.
Unless you can find ways to rescue the
so called damage of mythologies, insults
of the yesteryear by reconfiguring or
rethinking them in the light of what we
know now, I don’t know whether there’s

Still from The Stuart Hall Project

any point to do quite a lot. Those are
deeply held beliefs, acts of faith almost if

JA: No, I think, no, the reasons are actually

vacating of responsibility. In fact for me it’s

you will, about how one coexists with one’s

quite …. You see one of the conversations

the precondition for taking responsibility,

path and the use of archival material is part

that we had quite a lot when I started,

for locking into dialogue. We spent the first

of that; it’s in that realm.

when the first Black Art conference in

few years of the existence of the collective

Wolverhampton in ‘82 when most of the

between ‘83-‘85 working on a tape slide

In other words, the reasons why we turn to

people I know in the art world, especially

series called expeditions, to try and answer

the archive are not merely for aesthetic or

Black in the art world first met the Keith

for us this question of where you move

theoretical or even political reasons, there

Pipers, Eddie and the Sonias (Boyce). You

to once you’ve said, I’m not looking for

are deeply held faiths, articles of faith that

know that the argument then was: How

positive or negative images. What is the

go with that and there’s nothing better

is the form and function relevant to what

next place one goes to as a practice, as an

than that communion of dialogue with

we do? We were broken up into different

arts practice, where do you go from there ?

someone who sometimes is not around.

factions and they were clearly people who

And we made, I can’t remember how many

To see material that is shot by or edited by

believed that we do should be there for

now, in those 5 years a range of stuff, most

a group of people who were alive in the

elevating the race quote. People believed

of which were never shown. The only two

41

that made it outside of it were shown and

narcoleptic entity. I don’t quite understand

functions. UN, oh there’s Ghana! Oh there’s

are owned by the Tate are the two-part

how else to describe that and Transfigured

the President! There he comes with the flag!

expedition series, called Signs of Empire,

night is important for me because it’s piece

And when the citizens say, oh can I have

Images of Nationality. And then, there

of music that seemed to have launched

some food, some water, education, how

you could see us explicitly trying to work

New Music in our world. It’s a Sean Burke

about some healthcare? He (the State) just

through this business of the colonial past

piece based on a Richard Dehmel poem,

goes fast asleep. Most people talking about

and its legacy in architecture, images and

where two lovers are walking through a

Post-Colonial Africa always talk about the

photographs, trying to find this language,

forest and the woman turns to the guy,

violence and the Egyptian Tahrir square

trying to find a way of addressing this. And,

and she says oh you know, I know where

scenario, but actually for the vast majority

I think we did okay. We weren’t wholly

New Love is but I have to tell you that I’m

of people in the so called third world,

successful. I don’t think you’re wholly

carrying another man’s child. He says, oh

the relationship to their State is one of

successful when you’re in your 20s.

well don’t worry because our love and the

supreme indifference. It very rarely knows

night will transfigure this scene and turn

that they’re there, and if it does it doesn’t

it into something good. He will be or she

do anything for them. And it doesn’t

will be our child. And it’s something in

even get to the point where it kills them

JA: There’s an exhibition in Berlin called

that poem that seems to me to mirror the

or anything. It just doesn’t do anything

Year Zero in September. The Otolith Group,

promise the Post-colonial State made with

for them. It doesn’t touch their lives in

myself, Kader Attia, Jihan El-Tahri are all

its citizens.

any way or provide water, food, clothing,

KM: What you are working on now ?

trying to find a way to arrive at how to
talk about that explosion in the Post-war
period that led to all these incredible
developments around the world. Bandung
in Indonesia, and the All African People’s
conference in Ghana in ’58 and of course
the Civil Rights movement. There was a set
of triggers in the Post-war period that led
to all sorts of things, and I think the idea of

health, nothing. So it’s almost like a kind of

“There was stuff
happening in cinema
and television, so
there wasn’t a feeling
of being some kind of
lone flower in a desert.”

Year Zero is to say if you can find a moment

narcoleptic relation to real. I can’t think of
another way of describing it, so I’m trying
to do something that describes that at the
moment.
KM: How did the Stuart Hall film come
about?
JA: Yes, the Stuart Hall film was the most

for you where some of these start off what

Its citizens said or rather the State said to

demanding. It’s taken 3 years of watching,

would it be ? And I’m doing something

the citizens, you know, I’m not that good

listening, writing and talking to him.

not on the beginning of things but the

at this. I’ve just left the British thing or the

end. It’s call Transfigured Night and it will

French thing. I’m really not completely

KM: Did you feel a bigger pressure because

be a two screen piece about the transition

formed. Then, the citizens said well fine, no

he has been part of your professional life for

from Independence and the Joie de vivre

problem, we’ll go along with this. But, it

so long?

of Independence to the despair of the 70s.

wasn’t really a great result for most people

Something happened in the 70s in Africa,

or the vast majority of people in Africa. I’m

JA: I just felt this compulsion to return to

in particular, and that’s what I’m grappling

talking about the ordinary person in Africa

the debt, to honour the debt, considerable

with. It’s a project about narcolepsy really,

who got abused by the State, these Post-

debt we owe him in all sorts of ways. I think

particularly, the Post-colonial state in Africa.

Colonial entities. And the interesting thing

when one talks about formations, whether

It seems to me when you look at how it

is when their relationship with that State

it is Post-war England or Black Britishness,

behaved in that period one of the few

took on these kind of narcoleptic form, the

it’s just difficult to think of anything that

metaphors that sums it up is that is was a

State would wake up and attend all these

I’m connected to that has given me life

42

that he hasn’t had something to do with. I

I have arrived, I knew I was black so that’s

that stature, things have a way of coming

can’t think of anything. Now, he may not

the project. But you still had all sorts of

to you. I mean the trouble with doing

be in that position with everybody but he

stuff between ‘68 and 2000 when he was

something on somebody like Stuart Hall is

certainly is with me. So it was important to

active. What do you do with that? You put

knowing what not to do. It’s tough because

do something on him at least while he was

it aside… but once again, as you know I

there’s so much of it around.

around and let him know that people think

really do believe in this idea of recycling.

he’s important in these ways.

And in this case it’s more than recycling,
it’s actually looking for clues in the past,

KM: I know you talk a lot about free jazz.

for how and why we came to be what we
became. So I’m not doing the past a favour

JA: I love, love, love free jazz. It’s my

here. I’m asking it to help us out, to give

favourite...I learned most things I know

us a clue and when you have something of

from free jazz, and the main thing is just

Stills fromThe Unfinished Conversation

to be comfortable with moments and go
with moments, try and explore them to
see where possibilities are and don’t get
panicked by things that don’t appear to be
working. And sometimes it takes longer
as this clearly did, and sometimes I think
Lina (Gopaul) and I felt we were in for the
long haul and whatever it was, we’d see it
through. The initial brief was with some arts
council funds to do a gallery-based piece.
In the course of doing that, we said there’s
something else here. They’re always going
to talk to each other but they’re not the
same thing because we had unearthed
so much and clearly some of it, even now,
didn’t fit the timeframe and duration
frame of either project (John refers to the
3-screen and the single screen Stuart Hall
project). But we finished it and I think by
halfway through, I just thought something
else needs to be done with this material
and the 3-screen is only going to get us
this far. I had already decided by then, to
concentrate, having used the notion of
identity as an unfinished conversation.
The question then was when to end the
unfinished conversation, and clearly at the
point where he felt he had arrived, that was
the end of the project and by ‘68 he said,

“Wrong Mind”
Something has gone terribly wrong!
Pain, destruction, torture!
Terribly wrong! What is it?
How did it go wrong! How can it go so wrong!
My friend, listen.
It is our own actions that are the cause, our very own actions.
It’s our destructive emotions that drive these actions.
Our very own minds that think of them.
Think carefully.
It is our very own misconception of reality that splits things apart,
that names them mine and yours, that labels friends and enemy.
It is this attitude that causes the wish to protect and defend.
Realize.
It’s our very own minds that create the reasons, and then the weapons and situations.
It’s the conditioning to hold onto, to hit and hit back.
At a certain point there is no space and time to question.
The whole monster machinery is in place, grinding away.
My friend, be calm and see clearly.
It is our own mind, our own emotionality played out in actions that is the cause.
These are the terrors of our own deluded minds.
Mwangi Hutter

60

Assemble, video installation, 2012 ÂŠMwangi Hutter

61

CONCEPT

NEXT STOP
LOVE
BUS STOPS
OF EMOTIONS
All images courtesy of Francine Mabondo

Four fake dolly bus stops, placed in different street locations of Wandsworth, indicating human sentiments instead of
geographical locations: Love, Dignity, Fear, Solitude. There is no bus coming but if there was one where would you like it
take you? Next Stop Love is an exciting art project that happened during the Wandsworth Art Festival, in May 2011. In
the street, the artist interact with people taking pictures and offering them to send a special postcard. This project was
funded by Wandsworth Art council and the artwork was produced by Transport for London. Francine Mabondo is an MA
student in Contemporary Art theory at Goldsmiths University. Next Stop Love is her first curatorial project.
‘”My ambition is to inject some ‘life’ into our daily life and routine in order to create some spaces of unlimited freedom. I am
trying to find artistic ways to express and engage with a new public, perhaps one that is less predictable and less trained to the
arts. I am fascinated with the collective space and in particular the bus stop where people do not have to perform and can rest
from their life. By replacing geographical locations with human sentiments I hope that people can reflect on where their life is
taking them.
While working on the project, I researched whether any fakes bus stops had been created before. I found out that a German nursery home
had created fake bus stops to prevent Alzheimer patients from wandering off. In reality, the patients escaped the nursery home and always
gathered around the local bus stop where they could get back home. The nursery home came up with the idea of the fake bus stop to
allow the patients to escape and to be found. This example shows very well how unconsciously we appropriate affectively certain objects
of the community. This is the relationship I would like to explore.”
Francine Mabondo
For more informations : nextstoploveproject.blogspot.com

62

Francine Mabondo was born in 1972 in Paris
from a French mother and a Congolese
father. She was brought up in Paris and
completed an MA in Mathematics and
Economics in France. She moved to
London in 1999 and started to experience
different roles in the art world. She was a
press officer at the 198 Gallery in Brixton.
While studying History of Art at Birbeck
College, she worked in the public relations
Department Christies. She has helped
the implementation of the Cartier Award
project for Frieze Art Fair in 2009. In 2011,
she started her first curatorial project
Next Stop Love followed by a group
exhibition in May 2012 in London. She has
completed an MA in Contemporary Art
Theory at Goldsmiths University in 2012 and
produced a thesis on the work of Georges
Adeagbo exploring the idea of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;African
timeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Francine Mabondo is a conceptual
artist developing her practise through
installations, paintings and writings. She
is particularly interested in tracking the
collective unconscious in various spaces.
She is currently working on her next
exhibition which will held in May 2014
during Dakar next Biennial

We met Billie Zangewa at the end of
May 2013, while she was in Dakar for a
talk she gave at Raw Material Company,
in relation with « HOLLANDAISE: A
Journey into an Iconic Fabric », a group
show in witch she was featured. More
than a visual artist, we discovered a
strong but also extremely sensitive
person. Her speech was very engaging
emotionally,
sheZangewa
shared with us her
All images courtes as
of Billie
own experience. It made us want to
learn more about the artist and the
woman...

Auteur : Carole Diop

AFRIKADAA - Can you please introduce

choose this medium?

the final silk cut-outs.

yourself shortly ?

B.Z - Evolution. I didn’t deliberately set out

A - Has your practice changed over time ?

Billie Zangewa - I am a visual artist working

to do what I’m doing. Certain interests and

B.Z - I have definitely become much more

primarily with silk. I was born in Malawi and

circumstances came together and over a few

skilled with the scissors and the needle. Also,

am half Malawian half South African. I live and

years led me to textiles. Silk in particular.

I am more obsessed with detail than I used to

work in Johannesburg.

A- How do you start a piece ? What is your

be.

A- When did you realise that you’d be an

work method ?

A - In your work you portray yourself in

artist ?

B.Z - I start with a feeling and this develops into

different situations and places …

B.Z - I was about 10 years old when I saw a

something visual representing or narrating that

B.Z - In the last few years it has become that

drawing by a friend, and it moved me so much

feeling. I then do some photographic research

way because I have been introspective, looking

I knew this what what I had to do with my life.

and do the working drawing from these

profoundly at myself. Also as women’s issues, in

A - You work with textiles, why did you

photos. The drawing acts as my template for

a socio-political context, become pertinent to

78

Born in 1973 in Blantyre, Malawi, brought up in

engage in discourse around femininity.

A - Would you describe yourself as a feminist
?

A - Which of your artwork pieces is your

B.Z - Not especially. I have certain views on

very young age. She studied drawing and printmaking

favourite?

femininity and being a woman today, but I

at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, then

B.Z - That’s like asking which of my children

don’t consider myself a feminist. I believe that

returned to Botswana where she ventured in painting. Oil

I prefer. Each piece is a different experience.

there is still work to be done for the rights of

Each piece is special.

women and my wish for every one of us is to

A - You where part of the « Love and Africa »

truly love ourselves and act from that place.

me, I am using the self as a real-life symbol to

Botswana, Billie Zangewa took interest in fashion from a

pastels then gave form to the glamorous feminine figures
haunting the young artist’s mind. When she settled in
Johannesburg in 1997, a brief foray in the fashion world
did not distract her passion for visual arts. Encouraged

group show that took place in Houston in

A - Did you ever feel like giving up ?

by a friend to explore textile rather than pigment, Billie

2012. How important are love and emotions

B.Z – Don’t we all dream of having nothing

created a small series of embroidered silk handbags. She

in your work?

to do every once in a while? Yes, I’ve thought

gained recognition from the art world when she won

B.Z - Extremely important. There was a time

about giving up, and then I have this GREAT

the Gerard Sekoto Award in 2004. It is while preparing

time when my work was all about romantic

idea and have to act on it!

love gone wrong. Now it’s about a different
kind of love; love of self, for what I do, my
surroundings etc.

A - According to Paul Ekman ther are six
basics emotions: anger, disgust, fear,
happiness, sadness and surprise. Can you

the exhibition linked to this prize that Billie felt the
need to transpose her silk work on a two-dimensional
surface. Today Billie Zangewa has gained international
renown for her tapestries, although she favours the term
“appliqués”. Her pieces are generally preceded with

tell us …

preparatory work consisting in a pre-arrangement of

had to your work ?

What makes you angry ?

forms with pencil drawings and watercolours. The fabric

B.Z - I have had countless, because each

B.Z - Injustice and violation of human rights.

is then cut, assembled and sewn in a manner that leaves

positive response stays with me and gives

What disgusts you ?

appearing threads and stitches as if to highlight the

me courage. Positive words build love in the

Irresponsible wealth. I believe that when you

person that is speaking them and the person

reach a certain status, you should participate in

to whom they are directed. …However, I

the upliftment of society as a whole.

A - What memorable responses have you

handmade aspect of her work and translate its relative
immediacy. At a time where contemporary African art
practices have adopted digital culture, with its lot of
multiple images broadcasted at an ever faster pace, the

must say that when artists William Kentridge

What are you afraid of ?

work of Billie Zangewa is a necessary reminder of the

and Sam Nhlengethwa came to one of my

The unknown. I have some control issues.

slow maturing of forms, and the skillfulness of a hand

openings and bought some work, it was

What makes you happy ?

applying, one by one, at human speed, patches of silky

thrilling.

My son. He’s just beautiful.

fabrics selected from across the world.

A - Could you tell us about your life as a

What makes you sad ?

woman and an artist in South-Africa where

Wars and other types of violence.

you live and work ?

When have you been surprised for the last

B.Z – It’s not easy being a woman in South

time ?

Africa. You feel vulnerable because the threat

When I gave birth to my son last year and

hangs in the air and is apparent in how men

held him for the first time. It was so profound.

relate to you. They have a lot to learn about

I never thought that my heart could expand

how to treat a woman. Of course there are

with so much love.

exceptions, not all men display misogynist

A - If you were an emotion you’d be …

behaviour. I am optimistic that this can change

B.Z - Caprice. I am very emotional and sensitive

with focused awareness and by guiding young

to what’s going on around me, so can have

boys so they grow up to be informed men. As

many emotions at once.

for being an artist, it’s great. There so many
opportunities and support for us in our own
country.

79
The rebirth of the black venus, silk tapestry, 127x103cm, 2010

My family circle, silk tapestry, 104x104cm, 2007

Christmas at the ritz, silk tapestry, 120x111cm, 2006

80

The sun worshipper, silk tapestry, 137x102cm, 2009

81

PORTFOLIO

EMOTIONAL
INVESTMENT

By Anne Gregory
All images courtesy of Beverly McIver

Beverly McIver, widely acknowledged as an outstanding American
painter, is even more remarkable for her singular path as an African
American woman artist. Her expressionist portraits take a hard look at
race, gender, socioeconomic disparity, and mental disabilities within the
context of her own life. Most of her paintings are self-portraits, others
portray family or friends – all are painted with a ferocious emotional
honesty delivered with frenetic brushwork loaded with color.
Born in 1962, McIver grew up in the south

was her ticket out of the constraints of her

of overwhelming vulnerability.”1 The

during the civil rights era. The youngest

life’s circumstances.

series evolved and the white faces were
replaced with black. McIver confronts

of three girls, she was raised by a single
mother, who was a domestic worker. McIver

Chriss Aghana Nwobu is a Nigerian documentary, art and conceptual photographer
born on February 18th 1971. He is a founding member of the Invisible Borders
Trans-African Photography Project and was exhibited in museums and galleries
accross Europe, United States and Africa. We discover his work through a series of
photographs named “MASKED BURDEN” showing expressive women’s faces as the
former actors of Commedia dell’arte.
AFRIKADAA ­­- Please give us a brief bio:

of the things happening around me from

gave me a better representation of modern

where are you from and how did you start in

my point of view, without doubt I knew the

history than any other art medium. The

photography ?

best way to realize that was through still

strong impact of visuals especially in a form

photography or film. So I decided to teach

that is as realistic to life as photography

I was born in 1971 in the Igbo tribe. My

myself photography.

made it a natural choice of expression for

parents are from Eastern Nigeria but I work

Professionally, I have been making photos

me. If the old saying that one photographic

and live in Lagos, Nigeria.

for six years.

image equals a thousand words is correct,

My journey into photography started

Exposure to works of other photographers

why do I need to waste my time writing

thirteen years ago when I decided to bridge

and chatting with them further helped me

a thousand words when I can make a

the gap between photographers and their

in developing a basic understanding of the

thousand photos that will equal a million

consumers.

medium and how it can be deployed.

words? Though as time evolves, everything

I felt the need to start something that

else including my art evolves also. Today I

would serve as an interface and take

Why did you choose this medium ? Before

work more as an experimental artist using

the burden off photographers by trying

photography, did you try others forms of art

the camera as one of my mediums of

to market their works to consumers

?

expression.

themselves. That was how the agency

No, I did not try any other art medium, I

IKOLLO was born and gradually it grew

Coming from Africa, the traditional

started with photography and it began

into a media content production company.

form of photography commonly seen is

to evolve. Though, I love other art forms

In the course of all these developments,

documentary, until the advent of what

especially traditional African sculptural

there was this hunger in me to tell stories

today we call “conceptual”. Photography

pieces, music, dance and painting.

88

parts to it, mirroring life in different ways
Where do you get your inspiration ?

- beauty of childhood and wisdom of

I am inspired by the things around me,

the aged, the carefreeness of youth and

changes in my immediate environment

concerns of the old, it goes on and on.

and the larger world. I am driven by
the suffering of my people in the midst
of plenty, the internal and external
exploitation and misrepresentations of

Could you tell us more about the “masked
burden” series ? What was your inspiration ?
What was the public’s reaction ?
The idea of Masked Burden as a project

full of injustice at all levels regardless of

came from researching for another project

race, cultures or beliefs. But I find peace and

on sexual abuses against women. As I spoke

hope in those beautiful voiceless faces that

to different women, I realized many carried

seek justice through my art.

this burden masked behind beautiful faces,
wealth or exalted positions. It provoked
repeated questions in me and in trying to

I love and respect every work of art; there is

find answers to these questions I realized

always a message there for someone.

I also live with a masked burden. This

If they are not good enough the creators

prompted my making a self- portrait as part

would not have created them. Putting that

of the series showing that I am also bearing

into context, I will say that all dishes would

a burden that is masked just like everyone

never taste right in the mouth of everyone. I

else. No matter who we are, we all bear one

have been pointed in the direction of some

burden or the other and no society if free of

great artists, I am sometimes told I work

burdens.

like them or that there are similarities in my
art and theirs. Some of these artists I never
heard about. My art is driven by my mood,
the understanding of the things around
me, my interactions with the people I meet,
issues of my environment that need to be
addressed.
Which of your artwork pieces is your
favorite? Why ?
This is a tough question … my art is a
part of me so talking about a favorite is
like asking a mother which of her children
she likes the most. Rather, there are some
images that are so strong they are always
present in your visual subconscious. One
of such image is the one I call “Sides of the
Coin”. This single photo image has different

89

and by art in general ?
Art is life and life is art, so generally

Africa. I am driven by the pains of a world

Is there an artist you relate to ?

Are Nigerian people interested by your work

Nigerians appreciate art but I think that
the imported religions like Christianity and
Islam do not help African art.
Especially the new Pentecostal movement
which has established a strong presence in
Nigeria has dealt a great blow to traditional
African art, mainly the sculptural pieces
that documented our history as a people.
The Pentecostal church racketeers have in
so many ways demonized anything and
everything in this form of art by instilling
fears in their members and making them
believe that these pieces are mediums for
idol worshiping and as such should not be
touched since they are evil. Talking about
Nigerians appreciating my art, those who
are open minded and do not run away from
the truth of who they are appreciate my
works, while others say my works are strong

“Emotions and art are
like the body and the
soul, neither can live
without the other.”

and very edgy.

What memorable responses have you had

photos won the “Best Storytelling” category

during your career ?

at the Intimate Lens Film Festival in Italy

Have your artwork ever been awarded in
Nigeria?
I have never won any award in Nigeria as an
artist but I have internationally. In 2012 my

and just recently, I have been nominated
I must say that I have been very lucky,

for the prestigious Prix Pitect Award 2013 in

firstly with sincere commentary from

Switzerland.

some friends who are also in the business
of art and above all lots of heart warming
appreciation from people of diverse

To promote art, you are involved into 2
projects: Ikollo gallery and Invisible borders.
Have you reached your objectives ?

cultural backgrounds. These critiques
and comments have greatly challenged

Like I mentioned from the beginning,

and helped in shaping the way my art is

IKOLLO as an agency gave birth to the

delivered.

gallery and to every other thing we do

today. It is the platform that started it all
and so far it has been progressive with is
initial objectives.
Invisible Borders started out as an idea
to travel around Africa by ten Nigerian
artists, mainly photographers, to document
and tell the African story from an African
perspective. Like every new idea it
encountered its own challenges but those
challenges have built it into an enviable
art platform from the African continent.
Today what started out as a journey by
ten Nigerian artists now has participations
from different artists around the African
continent and has been celebrated by
world media and different art and cultural
institutions around the globe. I will simply
say I am very glad and honored to be one
of the pioneers of this project that has no
doubt added its voice to telling the Africa
story.
What is the major purpose of your work ?
My art is me and I am my art.
As a person, I hate injustice of any kind and
at any level. So I see my art as a weapon to
help fight social inequalities, injustice and
oppressions of any kind, gender or racial
discriminations. I consider my art as one of
the voice of these silent majority around
the world and to celebrate the beauties of
humanity.
What do you think about the link between
emotions and art ?
Emotions and art are like the body and the
soul, neither can live without the other. So
I like to say “a beautiful piece of art is that
which consumes you as you try to consume
it”.
While creating, do you think first to the

90

aesthetic or emotional aspect ?

on these projects as time permits.

As humans we are emotional beings, so I

Lastly, any words of advice for aspiring
artists ?

cannot divorce myself from it. My emotions
are the first signature my art bears of me,
so the emotional aspect is that life that is
breathed into the work by the artist.
As fixer for international TV and newspaper
networks, do you take advantage of this

The first question I often ask every young
artist I meet is “who or where do you
want to be? Do you want to be among the
billions that will pass through life and soon

position to promote your work ?

be forgotten or do you want to be among

No, because my contracts with my clients

the few men and women whose names

are different arrangements from my art.

are permanently engraved in history? The

Though there have been cases especially

answer to this question is the beginning

with the television, where they use my

of the discovery and realization of oneself.

photos for the publicity of a project in

When married with determination, this self

newspapers, but not to promote my art but

realization helps you make the decision

because they have a need for images with a

never to give up on anything and seeing

strong visual narrative.

everything as a challenge that should be

What are your upcoming projects ?
Right now I have a number of projects that
are ongoing like what I call “Style Remake”,
“The Lost Virgin”, “No Hurry in Life” and
“Our Blood”. Some of my projects are long
term projects while others are not, so I work

overcomed.
For more information about his work,
please visit these websites:
http://invisible-borders.com/fr/2012/03/
chriss-aghana-nwobu/
www.ikollo.com

Born in Nigeria, Ifeanyi Oganwu was trained as an architect at top schools in Chicago, London and
New York. His unique approach to experimenting with materials has garnered attention at renowned
international design shows such as Design Miami and Milan Design Week. For this issue, the young
designer who once caught the eye of John Ronan and Zaha Hadid sat with us to talk a bit about his
ongoing and future projects.
104

How did you come to architecture and

Paris, London or Miami?

then to design?

the work speaks for itself with the utmost
conceptual clarity.

I grew up in my father’s architecture and

I’m yet to exhibit in London but that’s about

urban planning practice, so you could

to change with the forthcoming PAD London

How important for you is the commercial

say I came into architecture from a very

art and design fair taking place in October

part of design? Right now, your work is only

young age. My interest for design came

at Berkeley Square. My Dutch gallery Privee-

available in very limited editions, so will you

from my training in architecture, which

kollektie, who already introduced the Bulgy

consider mass production in the future?

placed a huge emphasis on interdisciplinary

mirror/console at Design Miami/Basel, will

approaches to viewing, discussing and con-

I’m very open to creating work for mass

ceiving the facets of our built environment.

production and look forward to the opporbe able to present it with a new audience;

Tell us a little more about your recent

the work will also travel again to Miami in

projects. When I met you in Paris for the

December.

tunity to do so with the right partners.
Africa and Design : Do you think the con-

Designer’s Days, several of your designs,

tinent is ready for design as an industry?

among which the Contoured Crater desk

How do you think we could adapt the

and side table, the Ren table and the Tootsie

international design model to fit African

rug were exhibited at the Galerie Armel

populations’ consumption behavior, and to

Soyer. What’s the story behind each of these

give the continent’s designers an opportu-

pieces?

nity to reach the local market?

My first solo show entitled, “Look Mum,

Design has a role to play at many levels of

No Hands” held at Galerie Armel Soyer was a

the continent’s development; I believe that

great opportunity to present the ideas and

South Africa is making the push in the right

concepts driving my practice. The works

direction with Indaba and other initiatives.

selected for the show investigated the
relationship between materiality and topol-

Diallo. In April I did a show with AAF gallery
Lagos entitled Designing Africa: Appropriating Culture, Mediums and Meanings, the

with the Contoured Crater desk, fifty plates

What is your personal approach to design?

exhibition brought together an exciting

of birch plywood were stacked in a gravity

And if you should name 3 rules when work-

range of young practitioners from both art

defying manner, as if stretched between

ing on a project, what would they be ?

and design, further probing their blurred

the brushed steel writing surface and the

boundaries.

mirror-polished base of steel which anchors

I don’t really have a formula but I tend to

the work and reflects the ascent.

approach most projects by reducing the

And without considerations of national-

design challenge to its essence, that way

ity, period or background, which designer

105

/architect would you say has had a major

think are doing great? Any advice for aspir-

influence on your work? Would you identify

ing young architects and designers?

yourself as part of a specific architectural/
design movement?

As an architect, what would your own
dream home be like?

For the design of outdoor displays for
LagosPhoto Festival 2013 taking place in

A dream home would be a large and simple

My past experience working with John

late October, I served as a facilitator at a

space with great views, lots of wonderful

Ronan Architects, Zaha Hadid Architects,

summer workshop organized by the African

furnishings and beautiful art on the walls. I

AKT II Structural Engineers, and collaborat-

Artists’ Foundation, where I acted as a crea-

love the thought of being surrounded with

ing with fashion designer Hussein Chalayan,

tive mentor for architecture students from

inspiring works that can both challenge and

have been influential to my development.

the University of Lagos and design students

enlighten.

I wouldn’t say that I’m part of a specific

from Yaba College of Technology. Together

movement but my work is aligned with

with the Lagos State Government, the AAF

digital design and fabrication.

have initiated a special program – Capac-

Tell us a little about your future projects…

ity Development Integration, with the aim

Currently working on an expansive col-

Let’s be a bit critical about Africa : What are

of offering students a way to work experi-

lection entitled Dirty Dozen, where I’m

the continent’s biggest architectural woes

mentally outside both institutional and

exploring relationships between affective

and wins, in your opinion? Which project

commercial settings. The program is at early

qualities of cinematic space and design.

would you give a prize to and which one

stages so I look forward to its maturity.

Varying in complexity and materiality, the

deserves a shame award?

collection will be a conclusion of sorts on
You like experimenting with materials:

the areas of research that have run through

Coming from Nigeria I can only speak of

wood, marble, industrial materials… What

most of the projects thus far.

my firsthand experience because I haven’t

materials inspire you for African design

travelled extensively on the continent. The

today and tomorrow? For the world?

Your dream ?

planning and the implementation of zoning

For the workshop we looked at wood,

It would be great to work on a tower or

laws. I find many state and federal levels of

bamboo, rope and other sustainable materi-

bridge, perhaps a hybrid tower/bridge...

government to be ill-equipped in address-

als readily accessible in Lagos, I’m usually

I find the challenge of combining every

ing the planning issues that need to be

inspired by the performative aspects of

aspect of these typologies towards a techni-

addressed before we initiate the conversa-

a material ranging from structure to its

cally sound end result stimulating.

tion about what’s happening at the building

appearance or texture.

main issue I find has to do with poor urban

scale.
On a different note, the Aga Khan Award for
Architecture highlights architectural gems
in the continent, raising their public interest
from the international community.
What are your thoughts on architecture/
design and education in Africa? How do you
think we could improve the training young
students in the field receive, beyond better
equipment and facilities? Any schools you

Wearing E-Motion
By Tamara Leacock, Fashion designer and artist based in Brooklyn, New York

110

This summer was quite the e-motion,

distress, psychic imprisonment, cultural

plaza at the center of the city where such

keeping in mind the word’s etymology,

anxiety, social anxiety, emotions propelled

actions often take place, and sought to

“Out of motion.”

by the potential of challenging body on an

settle this Humanity vs. Monsanto debate

This summer I traveled from New York

issue that has affected bodies back home

in the most fair way as possible: a dodge

to Paris for the first time. Then from the

and around the world.

ball game. Each side enlisted help from

backstage of couture fashion week, I

the crowd, with only the side of Humanity

continued my “e-motion” from the fashion

So, led by world renown artist and activist

achieving, and in the end...fairly and

world to San Cristóbal de las Casas, where

Jesusa Rodriquez, and digital activist/

squarely, Humanity/The People of the Corn

revolution and couture are woven into the

prankster Jacques Servin of the Yes Men,

won, and most importantly, the very person

very cultural fabric of the city.

and alongside the actors/activists of

who won the game was a young woman

While in Mexico, I continued my e-motion

Fortaleza de la Mujer Maya and world

from the area who just happened to join

from merely passing through the worlds

renown activist group Yuyachkani, we

in. In this act, we brought hypervisibility to

of fashion and the wearable as passive

explored how to use our bodies, and

an all too pressing issue, but most critically

participant, to activated protestor.

the refashioning of our bodies, to raise

we succeeded in dialoguing with quite a

awareness in San Cristóbal, and Mexico

number of children who may not know the

I alongside 40 other activists, artivists,

worldwide, of the spread of genetic

politics of GM, but knew that “Monsanto

scholars from around the world, and

modification and its continued impact on

is bad because they are trying to take the

particularly across the American

humanity.

corn.”

Hemisphere, participated in a wearable art

We took to the streets, in naturally dyed

/ body art protest against the genetically

pigments, fabric, food scraps, as two

This visual / aesthetic /refashioned action

modified agriculture where we debated,

theatrical sides: HUMANITY/ People of the

was accompanied by a digital one, where

protested, and marched in the name of

Corn and a re-fashioned interpretation of

members of the collective, Sin Maíz

social visibility, land rights, and the right to

the corporate beast, Monsanto.

No Hay Vida, created a false website

live without GM.

We succeeded in drawing a great crowd

impersonating Monsanto and declaring

in the Plaza de la paz y la resistencia, a

pre-emptively their expansion plans. And

When we arrived to San Cristóbal de las
Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, we were presented
with a problem. Monsanto, the creators
of Agent Orange and the company
responsible for the bulk of genetically
modified foods in the U.S. food supply
chain, was looking at Mexico as its next
market, and in particular, Mexican corn. And
we were faced with the task of, through
the act of a protest, through the motion
of moving through the streets, donned
in hypervisual garb and thus embodied
sartorial protest, calling local, national and
GLOBAL attention to an issue that lead to
the destruction of a people.
The emotions we felt? Confusion, anger,

the company responded accordingly,
bringing this dialogue from the symbolic
but nonetheless real life embodied
battle on the dodgeball field of Plaza
de la Resistencia to the symbolic digital
embodied battle over the internet ethers.
Motioning through real and digital worlds,
the new e-motions that we felt? Inspiration,
adrenaline, joyful confusion, solidarity,
vitality, affirmation.
In this overly chemicalized world, what can
we do? Where do we stand? Continuing
the conversation from a transnational to
a hemispheric to a GLOBAL level so that
Humanity DOES win in the end? How?
By electing organic, staying active in our
food and FABRIC consumption, making
our governments and the multinational
corporations listen while making sure
that everyone in our lives is informed,
conscious, and equipped to make the best
nourishment and consumer decisions they

Abstract : « BANG ! BANG ! to Darkness, Charlotte and other songs; the body at risk » is a subjective attempt to comprehend
what happened in recent years in Contemporary Art especially in the form of video-art and performances. As a “textbook
case”, the text’s origin describe fragments of the Steve McQueen retrospective at Schaulager, James Coleman exhibit at
the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Tino Seghal’s “This Variation” constructed installation at Documenta (13)
and Anri Sala’s work at Serpentine gallery and Centre Pompidou.

A

situation

things past strike the memory of a Marian

Schaulager: a new building type?

Goodman show, seen in 2011. That was «
Static ».

What is the point of a Schaulager, of a
building in which art is stored but still
accessible for the public to view? What ideas

1 STATIC (2009)

about art and the strategy of collecting are

35 mm colour film, transferred to HD

involved, and what is the best architectural

digital format, sound, 7 minutes 3 seconds,

and urban development concept for it?

continuous projection

HERZOG & DE MEURON

The first work we encounter in the

When we first encounter « Schaulager »

earthly material as the warehouse, the

exhibition is « Static ». The room is large,

there is this inevitable joy of fulfillment. A

distance between you and the building’s

dark yet the right side of the space opens

warm smell of mud. The kind of golem full

monumentality is broken. You access a large

to the corridor of the Schaulager. One/

of thoughts that has been anchored there to

and heavy glass door that you pull. You

transform your soul. The geometry’s façade

made it into the Schaulager.

draws a cavity that is calling you from afar.
Two gigantic screens have been added

The lighting reveals itself and strengthens

to the polygon to reflect the presence of

as we go along. A surprising perspective

what’s inside. The scratched earthly material

effect accelerates our perception of this

used for the “skin” of the construction

sort of atrium rising through the full height

seems to protect this house of marvels.

of the building’s interior. As we pursue

It appears as if a projection made out of

our way to the ticket office a charming

earth from the immediate surrounding had

small yet furnished library teases from

been directly applied onto the wall. It gives

the top of its wooden furniture. A hostess

a natural quality to the building that only

is giving you a sticker, a booklet and a

Herzog & De Meuron would know how to

card with three entrances to the Steve

achieve.

McQueen’s exhibit. A café is also there on

As soon as you pass the somehow

the left, empty. Suddenly, my excitement

guarded entrance made out of the same

encounters a thud : a remembrance of

115

Cover Exhibition Booklet Steve McQueen

third into the exhibition space, images

is a rare focus. As far as 1944, Merce

are projected on a large screen of approx

Cunningham’s piece untitled Root of an

2,5 meters in width. The work is a restless

Unfocus* was concerned with fear many

movement turned around like a question :

works presented at Schaulager were

the sound, the motion, the State ? We hear

pointing at the finitude of the human being

the deafening racket of an invisible helicopter

and recorded actions to struggle against it.

circling the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island
in New York harbour. (p. 11. of the exhibition

and body of the artist and his opponent.
Smiles, laughters, scoffs, provocations,
gestures, hugs, the body, enlightenments,
breath mist, sweat are the primary elements
of that 10 minutes 35 seconds, continuous
projection.
Side Note: For the sake of the exhibition
as well as out of respect for the artist’s
work, the article will skip some of the
works mentioned above. To keep some of
the mystery intact, or perhaps to create a
gargantuesque envy to discover his work,
rediscover it or experience his future shows.
For whom frustrated by that trashy cut
you will be able to see his new feature film
« Twelve Years A Slave » starring : Chiwetel
Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict
Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Garret Dillahunt,
Paul Giamatti, Scoot McNairy, Lupita
Nyong’o, Adepero Oduye, Sarah Paulson,
Brad Pitt, Michael Kenneth Williams, Alfre
Woodard soon on the big screen ! From
september 5th – 15th 2013 at tiff. The
Toronto International Film Festival.
18 7TH NOV. (2001)
Single 35 mm slide, sound, 23 minutes
7th NOV. was the most emotionally
engaging piece presented at Schaulager. A
single 35 mm slide projection, sound and
a bench. For about 23 minutes we hear a
monologue from Marcus, the artist’s cousin,
who has changed his life forever. On the
date that gives the film its name, he was
attempting to put the safety on a gun and
inadvertently loaded a bullet which went
off and fataly injured his brother. (p.23 of
the exhinbition booklet). Marcus speaks
rapidly and vividly as in a transe. The tone
of his voice is somehow weak and he
seems to be sobbing. The presence and
permanence of the slide projection makes

literally bringing to light the devastating
nature of this politically motivated

119

and darkness. Some sixth sense is telling

windows were covered. The largest facade

you to stop. You hear voices. Recorded ?

of the « Galerie sud » was left open only for

Perhaps! You eventually move a few steps

the viewers inside of the gallery space. A

further then you realize that you have been

thin layer of darkness (visible light filtering

encapsulated into a performance: “This

through window films) was applied.

variations” by Tino Sehgal at dOCUMENTA

In conclusion, it seems that those artists are

(13). Your eyes are becoming accustomed to

fundamentally reconfiguring time based

the Dark. You passed. You are into it. We’ve

art by using darkness, storytelling, live

all been swallowed up by the darkness.

performance, voice, and the body as their

Joy ? Serendipity ? Womb ? Let go ? Mojo

primary material. Moreover, the position of

? “The income derived from producing

the viewer is reset and leads him to engage

things of slight consequence is of great

more with the work as he moves on free

consequence,” someone is speaking. “No”

plans.

from elsewhere in the room. “The income

Richard Schechner was defining

derived from things of little consequence

performance in 1973 in the Drama Review

is of great consequence”, again. Suddenly

as a ritualized behavior conditioned/

they all move, urban, youth. After an hour

permeated by play. Drama, script, theatre,

I sort of cultivate a friendship with one of

and performance were redefined and those

the performers. She looks at me ? One of

artists are pushing the boundaries to a new

the performers is high, is threatening me,

level.

challenging my body. Are we inside a cave ?

Even more astonishing as we remember
that Steve McQueen, Anri Sala and Tino

Anri Sala has also made his statement

Sehgal are so called “artists in their mid-

regarding motion images and the

career” in between 44 years old and 37

playfulness of the darkroom. In his

years old. They have at least 3-4 decades of

Serpentine gallery show (1 October – 20

full institutional support as well as galleries

November 2011) curated by Hans Ulrich

worlwide. The icing on the cake will be the

Obrist, most of the works presented were

opening of the Kramlich Residence and

playing in echo with a live performance as

Media Collection in Oakville, California,

their starting point. A perforated pattern

USA. One of the most important private

was carved through walls covering the

collections of media art featuring Steve

windows, and creating openings to the

McQueen, Jeff Wall, Matthew Barney,

outside that allowed the sounds of the park

Reinhard Mucha, Charles Atlas, Dara

and the gallery into the dialogue.

Birnbaum, Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol,

In the Centre Pompidou, Paris, for his

Keith Tyson, Jeff Koons, Ryan Trecartin,

monographic exhibition, curated by

Nam June Paik, Doug Aitken, Bill Viola, Joan

Christine Macel, (3 mai 2012 – 6 août 2012)

Jonas, Yves Klein and much more.

Anri Sala created a specific disposal for his
work. Most of the exhibition at the « Galerie
sud » is available to the passers-by as it is in
the ground floor. However for this show, the
Steve McQueen’s biography

120

“The Steve McQueen
retrospective at
Schaulager reveals the
uncompromisingly line
of engagement of the
artist.”

Steve McQueen was born in London in 1969; he lives and works in Amsterdam and London. From 1989 to 1990, Steve McQueen studied at
the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, and from 1990 to 1993 at Goldsmiths College, London. He continued his studies from 1993
to 1994 at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. In 1999, he was guest artist of the DAAD Artists-in-Residence programme in Berlin.
Steve McQueen has received many grants and awards for his work as an artist, including the ICA Futures Award (1996) and the Turner Prize
(1999). In 2009 he represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale. In parallel with his artistic work, Steve McQueen has been making
feature films, for which he has won numerous awards. In 2008 he was awarded the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his film
Hunger, and in 2011 his film Shame was granted the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Film at the Venice International Film Festival.
In 2003 Steve McQueen was commissioned official UK war artist (Iraq) by the Imperial War Museum’s Art Commissions Committee. Already
an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE, 2002), Steve McQueen was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to the visual arts.
Exhibition Catalogue
Steve McQueen. Works – Catalogue raisonné
Accompanying the exhibition at Schaulager, Basel, the richly illustrated catalogue presents a comprehensive survey of work created by
Steve McQueen between 1992 and 2012 and attests to the scope and intensity of his career to date.
The catalogue comprises essays by Cameron Bailey, artistic director of Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Okwui Enwezor, director
of the Haus der Kunst in Munich, James Rondeau, curator of contemporary art at The Art Institute of Chicago, art theorists Georges DidiHuberman, from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and Jean Fisher, and a conversation between Steve McQueen
and Adrian Searle, art critic for the British newspaper The Guardian. Furthermore the publication includes a comprehensive exhibition
history and bibliography.

Oceanography on a research vessel. We are
fully immersed into the underwater Black
Atlantis that Gallagher presents to us. In
Watery Ecstatic, 2003, we get close-ups of
the residents of this world and mythical,
mystical world. The harsh reality of their
creation story is always present but the
beauty of the inhabitants of this world is
mesmerizing. We are witnesses to their
survival •
Ellen Gallagher’s AxME exhibition continues
on tour:
SARAH HILDEN ART MUSEUM, Tampere
27 September 2013 – 26 January 2014
HAUS DER KUNST
27 February 2014 – 1 June 2014

127

“Image is history.
History is constructed.
Gallagher forces us to
engage and construct
our own position to
history.”

crazy but i’m serious”
“You and I are close, we intertwine; you may
stand on the other side of the hill once in awhile,
but you may also be me while remaining what
you are and what I am not.” (Trinh T. Minh-ha)
Annabel Guérédrat the choreographer, is
one of the global players on this homely
world stage. She was born and now lives
and works in Martinique, this small island of
an island, which gave birth to some of the
most outstanding decolonizing thinkers of
our times : Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon and
Edouard Glissant. First of all she wanted to do
a piece on “Black Feminism” inspired by the
philosopher Elsa Dorlin, as a critical reflection

128

on gender and race. But in course of the
project, she felt that she needed to bring in her
own personal experience in all its complexity,
more ambiguous, more intangible, more
slippery or “queery”. As a shared experience
with that of many other black women such as
Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison and Angela Davis,
she dwells on the borderline of the political
body. The result is a powerful performance
Act and dance piece exploding the myth of
identity in the multilingual trio with two other
mesmerizing dancers, Ana Gi et Ghislaine Gau,
blasting between chaos and transgression in a
permanent process of becoming. Sometimes
spoken softly, sometimes spoken out loud,
sometimes danced wildly to Brazilian rhythms
and sometimes performed by disappearance,
reappearance and silence, taking away
all spectatorship and making us part of a
collective hybrid experience of displacement,
disorder, flowing lines of flight, encounters and
empowerment: “What’s your name… ? What’s
your name…? What’s your name…? But
what’s your name…?”

Annabel Guérédrat, conceptor of the projet &
performer, Ana Pi, performer, Ghyslaine Gau,
performer, Séverine Riem, light designer
Production Co. Artincidence - production with
the CMAC and assistance in creating the D.A.C.
Martinique. With the support of the General
Delegation of French alliances in Brazil and
Panorama Danza Festival in Rio de Janeiro.
With the provision of studios Choreographic
Centres & Caen Montpellier
www.artincidence.org
Black Lux – Home Festival from Black
Perspectives at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, Berlin,
Germany until 30th september
For more information visit
www.ballhausnaunynstrasse.de

129

“Black Lux unites, as an
in-house production, for the
first time dance performances,
spoken word poetry and film
installations from the Black
Diaspora living in Berlin”

‘Decolonising Imaginaries’ was the second in a series of one-day exhibitions curated by
by Clark House Initiative in which theoretical propositions took the form of film, image,
sound and performative conversations that inhabited an on-going exhibition ‘L’exigence
de la saudade’ at the Kadist Art Foundation Paris, briefly, for one day.
132

It was preceded by ‘Untitled Exhibition #1’,
which proposed a dance as a day-long
exhibition. In this intense solo work by the
choreographer and dancer Padmini Chettur,
dance and conversation were inter-spaced
over the course of one day, in a disused
warehouse in Bombay’s old Mill area. Within
contemporary culture in India, Padmini
Chettur is the strongest component of what
might be called a movement art, overstepping
the boundaries of art and dance. In her
practice, she pushes dance over into visual and
philosophical propositions about the nature
of sculpture, and toward a phenomenological
understanding of space, of occupying volume,
of movement as displacement. In the work, she
built a relationship with the rotating machines
of the last working mill that one passed just
before entering the warehouse, repeating the
industrial sounds and the revolutions within
her performance. In Bombay, the towering
chimneys of the cotton mills still represent an
unaccommodated emotion, for the number
of people who overnight were displaced from
their livelihoods and homes after the Great
Bombay Textile strike in 1982. The emotion of
those displacements transferred to a unique
intensity in that starkly abandoned warehouse,
seated on old trunks, coming to visualise
displacement anew, as a way of visualising
the fourth-dimension as the movement of
volumes of revolving shapes Chettur first
carved out of space with the slow rotation of
her body around invisible axis and plumblines
within the body’s structure. This work was
performed again in Paris, in a stable that had
lasted from the 17th century, that had been
converted into a factory, till it was bought by a
choreographer, its stone walls, still intact.
In Paris, at the Kadist Art Foundation, a second
one-day exhibition included the constituents

133

Justin Ponmany, ‘ATTENTION! Disappearing Residences’, a street intervention as part of the exhibition
‘L’exigence de la saudade’ at Kadist Art Foundation Paris, 2013.

of the Afrikadaa collective. Two films were

distinctions. Obolo’s film has an impressionist

brought together and were layered within the

aesthetic that captures the movement of the

artist Prajakta Potnis's sculptural immersive

carnival dancers but blurs to create a mass

installation, a 'room full of rooms', a room with

of colour, recreating the emotional state of

multiple slide-projections that recalled the

being within the carnival. This film, screened

homes and windows of diverse populations

within the ‘room full of rooms’ installation,

of Paris. In Paris, where there is a gaping lack

similarly had already built into its structure, the

of curators of West-African descent within

accommodation of other artists layered onto it.

institutions, even among those directly

Each time Pascale Obolo plays ‘Deambulation

reflecting a former colonial relationship, like

Carnivalesque’, she invites a different artist

the new Musee de Quai Branly, the work of

to collaborate with her to produce a new

the collective Afrikadaa is significant. This

interpretive sound for the work. Jay One

insertion within a coherent work of an artist,

Ramier and Louisa Babari, other members of

was a gesture equally of political necessity, as

Afrikadaa, collaborated to make ‘DC1’ a sound

of artistic generosity.

score for this screening. They created what
they believed would be the sound memory

Having worked for years in cinema, Pascale

of slavery - of exiles, grief, deep melancholy,

Obolo, a member of Afrikadaa, visited the

but also of passing joy, and hope. It offers a

carnival in Trinidad each year. In 2008 she

contemporary reinterpretation of the legacy

created a silent film that caught the

of slavery, that persists within words and

masquerade, the painted faces, and the

language, a linguistic memory.

rhythm of the dance. Michail Bakhtin’s
writing on the mediaeval carnivalesque of

The writing of Arjun Appadurai evokes the

Rabelais, was about the upturning of all social

role of the imagination as a social practice,

and of art as a powerful tool for social

collective afrikadaa, based across Paris and

her research in the busy lanes of the city

commentary, which may spur political and

Dakar, working on fragments of African

constructing her cycle in the market of a

cultural changes. This concept challenges us

cultures that intersect outside the African

central Bombay district called Dadar. Here she

to negotiate our place within this imagined

continent.

engaged a four-generation-old family that

community in consideration of our own

repaired classical music instruments. They

personal experiences as members of actual

Clark House invited art historian and author

further sought help from a local cycle dealer

families and neighborhoods, with real ethnic

of 'Black is a Colour', Elvan Zabunyan, into

and were able to create a cycle that made

and cultural histories, placing into context the

conversation with the artist Caecilia Tripp in

music when pedalled. Back at Clark House she

idea of an ‘artistic imagination’ and the ‘social

whose works there has been a consistent

persuaded Nikhil Raunak to be the performer

imagination’. In his book, ‘Decolonizing the

reference to the spirit of John Cage and

in her film, with help from a cinematographer

Mind’, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o writes, ‘Since culture

Edouard Glissant. To begin the conversation,

friend Ram Devineni, she shot the first edition

does not just reflect the world in

Caecilia Tripp screened the magnetic

of her film ‘Music for (prepared) bicycle’. In

images but actually, through those very

conversation she captured on film, when

exchange, she taught members of the young

images, conditions the colonial child to see

two brilliant minds, the writer Glissant and the

collective at Clark House, called Shunya,

that world in a certain way, the colonial child

poet Linton Kwesi Johnson meet and talk. This

inspiring Yogesh Barve and Amol Patil for their

was made to see the world and where he

small precise and humorous masterpiece is

own films.

stands in it as seen and defined by or reflected

titled 'Making History' (in co-direction with

in the culture of the language of imposition.’

Karen McKinnon, 2008), and unfolds gently

At the event at Kadist two other films were

Frantz Fanon resisted the definition of ‘Negro’,

through a filmed conversation and many

inserted: Amol Patil’s video ‘Molt’, in which the

he refused to be described as such because

strolls, slowly finds a shared understanding of

artist covers himself in adhesive, and then

he believed it was the atrocity of slavery and

the shades of meaning of words like identity,

crawls out of it as if he were a snake shedding

colonialism to confer a permanent existence

and a discovery of a position.

his skin. In another video ‘Impression’, Amol,

of inferiority to a group of people. To this

has an artist friend cover him up in Henna

comes the revolutionary stance of the editorial

Within the exhibiiton at Kadist a documentary

resembling traditional Indian wedding

collective Afrikadaa, committed to making

about the choreographer Chandralekha

decoration. This he then covers with adhesive

visible African and especially francophone

(courtesy Sadanand Menon, the pad.ma

and lets the Henna dry over 24 hours. The

African art. They bring to this discussion, the

archive and CAMP) was on view. An avant-

Henna dries into the resin of the Adhesive

philosophy of the jazz musician Sun Ra, and

garde anarchism is present in the dance of

leaving a decorative impression, he then

a philosophy of moving beyond identity

Chandralekha, which she shared with John

carefully removes, to form a second skin, a

through Afro Futurism, looking at identity

Cage when they met. This crossroads of

shirt. Patil comments on India’s relationship to

from the point of view of outer-space. For the

thought was explored in the discussion as a

colour and its distaste for dark skin. The

first time, Kemi Bassene introduced a fictive

means to open out other narratives within

brand, Garnier, sells skin-lightening creams in

element to his photography.

the exhibition, and the way modernism

India. These works may be read as Fanonian

unfolded in parallel geographies. Cage saw an

masks, dealing with caste and colour

Taking off from the direction of Sun Ra, and his

ally in Chandralekha as they scripted ideas of

prejudices within India, as much as they are

own interest in Afro-Futurism, Kemi Bassene

modernism in dance and music.

satires on the customs and rituals of using

made his first fictional photographs for this

henna during weddings.

one-day exhibition. Born in Dakar, and a

A second work by Tripp was inserted here,

musicologist, he had been taking photographs

about taking the music of John Cage to the

We began to feel that Kemi Bassene’s work

since the age of seven in his grandfather’s

streets of Bombay, and later to Brooklyn. In

inspired by Sun-Ra’s ‘Afro Futurism’ was

photo-studio Mama Casset in Dakar. He is a

2012,

equally relevant to the social context of

founding member of the artistic and editorial

Caecilia Tripp had visited India she began

Bombay, where suppression on the basis of

134

Come, Africa !

caste-based identities is thinly veiled.

France may display interest in India’s economy,

Kemi Bassene presented ‘Nine’ an exhibition

(though it has begun to stagger), but in

at Clark House in Bombay in 2013. Kemi had

France, descendants of immigrants from

written, ‘Nine is the link between a starting

the subcontinent will face a similar future if

point and a destination according to Songhai

their nations are celebrated for their material

thoughts’. His was one of the city’s first

successes alone, and not also given a chance

This poem ‘Aa Jaao Africa’ (Come
Africa) by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, was
written in Urdu in March 1955, while
he was imprisoned for ‘seditious

exhibitions on Africa. Life for a someone

to express themselves in France’s intellectual,

activities’. The words that seem the most

from Africa is a difficult existence in the city

cultural and spiritual discourse. This can only

potent in the poem are perhaps these: ‘I am

of Bombay, a Cameroonian businessman

be brought about if there exists a sense of

Africa, for I have taken on your form/ I am you,

who lives in a hotel since the last 4 years

camaraderie between the people of Asia and

and my gait is your lion-walk’. The binding

without being able to rent a home, says

Africa.

of identities, of privileges and poverties of
freedom, across national borders, of

people refuse to rent to a black man. Though
in Islam all men are seen as brothers when

This solidarity once existed, placing

claiming - beyond allegiances and solidarities -

he went to the mosque-men jeered at him.

local politics within a broader context of

another’s identity as one’s own, is the powerful

Bassene’s exhibition reflected on imaginary

international struggles. This was the primary

strategy of the poem. 1955, the year of the

of nine contemporary Black existences in

impetus for a section of the Paris exhibition,

poem, was coincidentally also the year of the

metropolitan geographies.

‘L’exigence de la saudade’, which dwelt on

Non-Aligned Movement. At Clark House there

a shelf-system of objects, books and works

is a commissioned permanent installation of

Bassene is from Senegal a culture which also

by Indian artists from the 60s. Even though

chequered windows by Yogesh Barve. The

has a caste system akin to the Indian one. As

racial tropes had not really been employed in

work is part of a larger series called, 'equality/

curators in the city of Paris we saw the city’s

India’s freedom struggle in the 30s and 40s, a

inequality', to do with the paradoxes of

immigrants create their own segregation of

new alignment with race emerged in the 60s

attaining balance and equal arrangements

colour, how the Sri Lankan Tamils, Pakistanis

in India, with the understanding of a colonial

of rectangular shapes. Clark House was once

and Indians kept away from the Africans.

imaginary.

a shipping office. Old, dusty model ships

How those from North Africa called their land
‘Afrique Blanche’. South Asians - the world’s
largest migrating population - come to witness
in Bassene’s contemporary nine travellers, their
own future as immigrants who replace people
from Africa each day in Paris.

Come, Africa

House looked like a big ship out at sea, with an

Scraped away the grief from my eyes

exhibition is a docking at a new port, along

Broken away from the grip of pain
Torn away from the web of helplessness

when men like Leopold Serdar Senghor

Come, Africa!

economic space through Francafrique, where

The earth’s heart beats with mine, Africa

exhibitions of African art and wealthy Africans

The river dances while the moon keeps
time

were seen on the boulevards of Paris, and
seminars with Aime Cesaire, these cultural
sways did not result in the creation of a real
social space within French society for French
Africans, a fact of struggle even today.

135

When he saw it, Kemi Bassene thought Clark

Come, for I have raised my forehead from
the dust

Despite the 1950s ‘Negritude’ movement,
and Felix Houphouet-Boigny gave Africa an

and navigation maps remain in the archives.

I am Africa, for I have taken on your form
I am you, and my gait is your lion-walk
Come, Africa
Come with a lion-walk

upper and lower deck, and where every new
the cultural cross-routes of slave, colonial,
immigrant or space ships. Thus playing with
the idea of a deck of cards, and the windows
of a ship deck, changed around the glass
windows of Clark House to create a permanent
installation that arose from a conversation with
one of the members of Afrikada, and reminds
us of a commitment to solidarity.

Caecilia Tripp, image during the making of ‘Music for (prepared) bicycle’, Clark House,
Bombay, 2012

Meschac Gaba the marriage celebration
is a public act that should be enjoyed
collectively. This room is not particularly
intimate or emotional for the artist, it is
only my personal projection that is. As
I am travelling inside the museum, I am
under the impression of following the
introspective reflections of the artist,
creating as I am following, my own
introspective reflections. With the marriage
room, Meschac Gaba has put himself at
the centre of his museum, giving birth to a
prophecy by fixing his love on the wall to
make it visible and real in the museum of his
fantasy, transcending at the same time its
meaning.
But Gaba’s museum is not just a room, it
is a composition of many and as I embrace
the work, I feels like a fable repeating the
cycle of its own narrative, at Tate but also in
time and conceptually. The ‘twelve rooms of
the museum’ is a format that is reminiscent
of a religious and conservative narrative.
The museum provides a rigid frame
that retains the attention and provides
credibility, acting as a secure allegorical
excuse to deliver a more complex message
in relation to the question of visibility. The
number twelve plays also an active part
as it symbolizes complete creation. By
associating with it Gaba’s work echoes the
aura of the genesis, the announcement of
something new and significant. While the
format of the work is grand and eloquent,
the content is on the contrary humble
and honest. This interesting combination
creates a space of investigation between
the title of the project and its content and
if the museum is complete with its twelve
rooms, the question persists recurrently. The
museum of Contemporary African Art 19972002 is not evidently emotional because

139

it is distracting us with its abundance of

us. While playing and participating, the

objects and installations but the canvas, the

audience is invited to explore collectively

decommissioned bank notes, the sculptures

its own sacredness. Gaba’s museum of

and games, the books and all other objects

Contemporary African Art is not evidently

are really just traces of a more important

emotional, it is sacred.

movement, one that talks about time
and the recollection of that time. So the
emotion diffuses throughout the work on
a collective level as opposed to a personal
one. The playfully and joyous interaction of
the different rooms brings out the sacred
aspect of the game but also the sacred in

exploration of the objects in our everyday
world. Emotional Design will appeal not only
to designers and manufacturers but also
to managers, psychologists, and general
readers who love to think about their stuff.